I'm very proud to say that I am still managing to finish books! And here I am, writing down thoughts about them once again, it's almost like I used to be a book blogger...(Please be aware that there are affiliate links in this post which just means if you buy a book through them I get a tiny commission and am very grateful)
Two very different books this time. Firstly, recommended by (I think) one of Book Riot's podcasts and purchased (definitely) on a bookshop crawl (I forget which one), How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee, published by Bloomsbury. This is a memoir in the form of a series of essays, beginning with Chee's childhood and travelling through different aspects of his life. He writes about his identity and figuring out his life from all sorts of different lenses. One of the essays is about his rose garden, another about going out in drag for Halloween. The subjects are wide and varied but all of them are absorbing and illuminating. I found the essays about his experience of having friends with and losing friends to AIDS and his involvement in action groups and protests incredibly moving and interesting as I haven't read a huge amount about the subject. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is memoir done very well, and although many of the subjects are heavy and sad it isn't it itself a heavy or a sad book, but more a beautiful reflection on life and all the things we learn along the way.
The second book I've finished recently was this month's book from my British Library Crime Classics subscription, The Black Spectacles by John Dickinson Carr. This is a murder mystery of the 'someone dies in a country house, everyone in the house is a suspect' variety, but with a twist as the story begins with pre-existing crime, and then moves forward in time to the focus of the story. Someone has been poisoning people with chocolates and the village suspects a member of Marcus Chesney's household. As part of a debate about the reliability of witnesses, Chesney stages a memory test which ultimately becomes a murder scene, and Inspector Fell is called in to crack the case. I enjoyed reading this story. It has enough little twists and turns to keep the reader engaged throughout, and the characters are fun to read and wonder about. I did guess who the murderer was, which always takes the thrill off a little bit, but there were times that I doubted my solution, and it was a quick, fairly light read.
These tick off the 'memoir' and 'press with more than 100 books' boxes in my Indie Challenge Bingo Card.
Have you read either of these books? What did you think?
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